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No, I told him.
I would wish to use its height to observe, as well as I might, the battle.
It was fall, and the wind was cold whipping across the water. Clouds scudded
across the sky. In the north there was a darkness lying like a line against
the horizon. We had had a frost in the morning.
Furl the sail, I told an officer.
He began to cry orders to the seamen.
Soon seamen were clambering out on the long sloping yard and, assisted by
others on the deck, hauling on brail ropes, were tying in the long triangular
sail.
I studied the surface of the water to windward.
What shall we do now? asked an officer.
Lay to, I told him.
What will you do now? he asked.
I am going to sleep, I told him. Call me in half an Ahn.
After some sleep I felt much refreshed.
Upon awakening I was served some bread and cheese in my cabin.
I came out on the deck.
The wind was very cold now, and, the Doma shook in it, the windward waters
striking at her hull. We had both the stern and stem anchors down.
I was given my Admiral's cloak and I flung this over my shoulder, my left,
that to which the strap carrying the glass of the builders was attached. I
then thrust some strips of dried tarsk meat in my belt. I called the lookout
down from the basket, that I might climb to his place. In the basket I wrapped
the admiral's cloak about me, began to chew on a piece of tarsk meat, as much
against the cold as the hunger, and took out the glass of the builders.
I examined the state of the battle.
Tarsk meat tends to be salty. There is usually a water gourd kept at the
masthead, for the lookout. I uncorked the gourd and took some of the water.
There had been a light film of ice in it. Some of the crystals melted in my
mouth.
The line of darkness in the north was now a margin of darkness.
I turned my attention again to the battle.
As I watched, the long, strting-out line of round ships of Port Kar moved
past, tacking, scarcely using their oars, their small, triangular storm sails
beaten from the north. The lateen-rigged galley, whether a round ship or a
ram-ship, although it can furl its sail, cannot well let out and take in sail;
it is not a squarerigged craft; accordingly she carries different sails for
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different conditions; the yard itself, from the mast, is lowered and hoisted,
sails being removed or attached; the three main types of sail used are all
lateens, and differ largely in their size; there is a large, fair-weather
sail, used with light winds; there is a smaller sail, used with strong winds
astem; and yet a smaller sail, a storm sail, used most often in riding out
storms. It was the latter sail which, although
it was unusual, the round ships were using for tacking; had they Used either
of the larger sails, with the sharp wind, they would have heeled dangerously
toward the water, perhaps shipping water through the leeward thole ports.
I smiled as the ships swept past. Their decks were al- most deserted. But
I knew that, crowded in the stem and stern castles, in the turrets, below
decks, in the rowing and cargo holds, there were hundreds of men.
I resumed my watch, lifting again the glass of the builders toward the west.
The ships of my farst wave had now struck the lines of the fleet of Cos and
Tyros.
It was cold in the basket.
Behind them, scattered across the cold waters of Thassa, I could see the pairs
of the second wave proceeding, swiftly gliding, oars dipping, toward the long
lines of yel- low and purple sails in the distance, yellow for Tyros, purple
for
Cos.
I wondered how many men would die.
I pulled the admiral's cloak more closely about me. I asked myself who I
was, and I told myself, I did not know. I knew only that I was cold, and that
I
was alone, and that, far in the distance, men were :fighting, and so, too,
would others.
I wondered if my plans had been gbod ones, and I told myself I did not know
that, either. There were so many thousands of factors, impossible to foresee,
so much that might alter, or shift unaccountably.
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